A number of my German immigrants came to southern Wisconsin around the middle of the 19th Century. One of the first to arrive was Frederick Ostenberg from Elberfeld, Kingdom of Prussia. Frederick was born in 1816 and was the son of Heinrich Dietrich Ostenberg (b.1785, d.1860?) and Elizabeth Strackbein (b.1790, d.?). The Strackbein family has been traced back another seven generations to Hen who died in 1475. Elberfeld is a village in eastern Germany in an area historically known as the Rhineland. By the time Frederick was born, the Rhineland was under the control of Prussia which, by then, had become the most powerful of the German Principalities. Heinrich and Elizabeth reportedly had six children of which two would come to America. To date, no other information about the life of the Ostenbergs in Elberfeld has been found and the family has not been traced past Heinrich.
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| Both the Frederick (section 9) and Charles (section 16 & 17) Ostenberg farms can be seen in this partial 1873 map of the Town of Blue Mounds, Wisconsin. Also, in the upper left corner is an advertisement for "C. Ostenberg, Dealer in Dry Goods, Groceries, etc." |
